US to Arm Ukraine With Toxic Depleted Uranium Munitions
In the latest manifestation of the War State’s depraved indifference to human suffering in Ukraine, the United States will soon pour depleted uranium munitions into its proxy war against Russia, according to an exclusive report from Reuters.
The shells, which are designed to penetrate enemy armoured vehicles, will be used by US M-1 Abrams tanks that will begin arriving in Ukraine within the next several weeks. In March, the United Kingdom was first to announce it would give the controversial rounds to Ukraine, for use in British Challenger 2 tanks.
The ammunition is made from the byproduct of uranium that’s been processed for nuclear energy and nuclear weapons. In anti-tank use, depleted uranium is valued for its density, which is 1.7 times the density of lead. It’s used to manufacture dart-like sabot rounds that penetrate armour and ignite when they contact the oxygen inside the targeted vehicle.
While the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) says the risk posed to civilians by the residue of depleted uranium (DU) rounds “was not significant,” a different study points to potential links between the ammunition and a variety of genuinely horrifying birth defects in Iraq. That study centred on the Iraqi city of Nasiriyah, which was attacked by the US military in the early 90s and again in 2003.
According to the International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons: When DU bullets hit an armoured surface, they are burned by the high temperatures generated by the impact. This creates a very fine dust that is radioactive and chemically toxic. Through food and respiration, this toxic dust is absorbed by the body. In the body, the radiation and the chemical poison cause serious damage. Many diseases can be caused: alteration and damage to the genome, malformations of the human body in the womb, impaired fertility in men and women, cancer in almost all organs, kidney failure and behavioral problems.
It bears emphasis that these rounds will be used by the Ukrainian military on land it’s purportedly seeking to “liberate” for the benefit of the civilians who live there and will be exposed to this hazard for many years to come.
The ammunition will be included in a new military aid package that will be revealed next week, Reuters reports. The new package will redistribute between $240 million and $375 million in American wealth to Ukraine, on top of the more than $135 billion poured into the proxy war so far.
